<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Revealing their True Selves by Fadamonnel</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24250360">Revealing their True Selves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fadamonnel/pseuds/Fadamonnel'>Fadamonnel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Persona 4 Spoilers, Persona 5 Spoilers, there's more characters eventually, you get the point everyone's here</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:21:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,723</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24250360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fadamonnel/pseuds/Fadamonnel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A year since the Phantom Thieves dissolved and Ren and his friends returned to their normal lives has come and passed. The public has long moved on, and the investigation case was closed thanks to a certain prosecutor. As the former Trickster settles into relaxing vacations visiting his friends in the city, the group comes to a realization.</p><p>Someone's still looking for them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>idk i like persona and i procrastinated writing something about it for, like, a whole 3 years. i know royal's out but fuck i've been thinking about this story since the original came out and it's way too late i'm sorry maruki i still love you</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Holy Grail extended its tendrils over the city of Tokyo, and distortion ran rampant through the bustling metropolis. As the sky turned red, and the ignorant masses succumbed to complacency, the Phantom Thieves found themselves alone and forgotten. Their few believers and confidants found themselves mere whispers against the desires of the greater public, and one by one, the Thieves vanished from cognition. Even as his friends disappeared in front of his eyes their leader stubbornly clung to life, until he felt his legs give out and he reached out to the sky, muttering words of encouragement at someone he couldn't focus enough to remember.</p><p>Pain shot through his body, and his hand was gone. Then his arm. Then his body.</p><p>The crowd walked over the spot as if nothing happened, oblivious to the crimson storm and the pillars of bone infesting the city.</p><p> </p><p> [...]</p><p> </p><p>The Detective Prince, the original one, sat in her small office. The scent of instant coffee permeated the room, enough to keep her energized through the long hours of her work, and the patter of rainfall against the window kept her focused. Cases upon cases piled on her otherwise tidy desk, most of them solved, and more gathered near the few boxes underneath her workspace.</p><p>Gone were the days of high-profile murder mysteries entrusted solely to the celebrity, with jurisdiction over even the police force itself (When they weren't belittling her, of course.) No, that spotlight now shined on the 'Second Coming' of the title she'd been appointed by the public, Goro Akechi. A third year high school student with far more charm than herself, and a knack for solving the elusive Mental and Psychotic Breakdown cases that she'd never been given clearance to look into. More recently (and interestingly) though, he'd decided to undertake the chase against Phantom Thieves, another riddle that she'd been denied permission to look into.</p><p>Not that she cared, of course. She was a private investigator, and her work with the police force had been less involved ever since Inaba. She'd still take a crack at them, on her own time. After all, every puzzle was a joy to solve, and the Phantom Thieves in particular reminded her of an old game she once played with her grandfather. She already had an interest in the case. And a certain friend of hers had come over from Inaba to help her out.</p><p>Now, if only she could <em>get<em> to it. The more she tried to pry into it, the more work would pile onto her desk. Incidentally, her main client these days was the government. She'd said that her work with the police wasn't very involved anymore, but the truth was that it was almost unavoidable. Old contacts, government officials, corporation employees. All of them seemingly bounced at the opportunity to take her time away, and it hadn't gone unnoticed to her that it seemed like a large number of them would come whenever she started asking around for material on the Thieves, or the breakdowns. It didn't help that her successor had mysteriously disappeared from the public eye, and most of his unrelated work now fell on her shoulders. Not to mention that as Akechi's personality slowly vanished from the public's perception, the media started going back to herself, Naoto Shirogane, for their weekly fix of intrigue and content.</em></em></p><p>
  <em>
    <em>She disliked every second of it. There was a reason for why she'd never made public appearances after the rise in popularity of the pleasant high school boy. Unlike him, she wasn't good with the public eye, and was far more interested in the work than the media appearances. It was awful.</em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>A few buzzes of her phone pulled her out of her train of thought. She let out a sigh, and leaned back on her chair. </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>"What time is it...?"</em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>Naoto's hand let go of the pen she'd been using to write onto a piece of paperwork, and carefully made its way to her phone. The case was a sleek dark blue, with a sticker of a yellow smiley face her friends had gifted her once.</em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>She quickly dropped the phone, and hurried over to a cabinet on the other side of the office that she began to look through.</em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>Her phone's screen, still on, simply displayed a couple messages.</em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>[Yu Narukami]<br/>
I think something's wrong.<em></em></em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>
          <em>[Yu Narukami]<br/>
Put on your glasses and look outside.<em></em></em>
        </em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>
          <em>
            
          </em>
        </em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>
          <em>
            <em>Naoto's eyes widened behind the lenses of the glasses she'd finally been able to find in the mess of different gifts and souvenirs from Inaba, and she opened the window to the small room.</em>
          </em>
        </em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>
          <em>
            <em>It was raining blood, and an enormous tower of bones stood above the Tokyo skyline, off towards the direction of Shibuya.</em>
          </em>
        </em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Wild World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey it's me again with another chapter of this shit, hope u enjoy</p><p>this is still technically part of the prologue but i spit at the face of convention because i'm way too lazy to figure out a way to incorporate that into a proper structure</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Trickster woke up to a familiar blue.</p><p>He'd failed.</p><p>He'd seen his friends fall, saw them vanish before his eyes. And he himself had befallen the same fate. It wasn't heartbreaking, though. No, he wasn't sad, nor disappointed, not even guilty.</p><p>He didn't know what he felt.</p><p>When he saw the figures of the residents and master of the Velvet Room, hope swelled up in him like a hot air balloon, and his failure seemed distant. He'd talk to Igor, and surely the old nose would give him a way to-</p><p>
  <strong>"I sentence you to be executed."</strong>
</p><p>He couldn't quite make out the words of the twins, his mind was still dazed from the betrayal that stirred within him. Sure, he'd always thought Igor was a little off, but deep within him he felt that the Velvet Room and its residents were supposed to aid him in his journey, even at its deepest points.</p><p>But again, he wasn't shedding a tear over it. And although he didn't know what he felt, getting pelted by attacks from the twins began giving him the chance to form a pretty decent idea of what it was. Through the pain of the sweltering fire, freezing ice, piercing attacks, and endless other attempts to strike him down at the hands of the two attendants, he felt his resolve form.</p><p>He was getting kind of pissed, honestly.</p><p> </p><p>[--]</p><p> </p><p>A small, blue butterfly flew off upon hearing a door open, and Narukami stared up at the deep crimson sky from the small balcony of his apartment that he'd just walked out from. It was unsettling, and even a little upsetting. Everything about it felt wrong. How it seemed to rain down blood, how the cold winter air suddenly felt non-existent, and how nobody outside even cared about it.</p><p>It all reminded him of the thick fog of lies he'd fought so hard against in the Midnight Channel with his friends. And it wasn't just because it <em>felt</em> like the world of the unconscious.</p><p>It was because he felt his other self screaming inside of him, demanding to be released. Izanagi begged, no, <em>commanded</em> for him to rise up once again and seek out the truth. His words were thunder and his voice was laced with static, and Narukami had to admit that he hadn't felt this way since he faced off against a literal god.</p><p>He fired off a message to Naoto, assuming she hadn't seen anything outside, or was simply not paying attention. Judging by how everyone outside seemed none the wiser, it felt appropriate that she'd need the glasses that cut through the fog.</p><p>
  <em>But then, why could he see everything just fine without them?</em>
</p><p>He shrugged the thought off, focusing more on the immediate aspect of the situation. Once he confirmed that Naoto could, in fact, see the hellscape outside thanks to the glasses a certain bear made, he asked her to come to a secluded park near his building. It had a pretty good view from below of the pile of bones that towered above the city, and he'd have to go over the situation with the genius mind of the detective before acting.</p><p>Frankly, he wished all of his friends were there to tackle this, but life goes on, and all of them were carrying out their own lives back in Inaba, unable to answer the call even if they wanted to. Well, most of them. He wasn't sure where Rise was doing a tour next. He'd have to ask next time he got the chance.</p><p>Still, he made it a point to send each one of them a message, warning them to search for their glasses. He wasn't sure if this even reached that far, but if it did, they deserved to know-</p><p>"-Huh." he muttered.</p><p>"No reception."</p><p> </p><p>[--]</p><p> </p><p>The inkling of annoyance in the Trickster's mind had grown stronger and stronger. Learning that his 'executors' were actually halves of an attendant tasked with helping him and treating him with a lot more respect and admiration than her halves had. Discovering that the 'game' he'd taken a part of had been rigged in every conceivable way, and most of all, being offered to throw it all away and accept a deal with the devil (or rather God, in this case) that betrayed everything he'd worked for thus far turned that annoyance into something else.</p><p>Righteous fury, wrapped up in a neat little package of absolute rebellion.</p><p>So was it <em>really</em> a surprise that he told the manifestation of Humanity's wishes to fuck off?</p><p>Lavenza, the poor soul, still seemed slightly taken aback from his small outburst, but Igor (the real one, apparently?) seemed overjoyed, and his beaming smile looked proud, rather than the fake's amused-looking smile.</p><p>He'd have called the contrasts between the real Igor and the fake one that clued him into knowing that this one meant well 'small', were it not for the fact that his voice was completely different. It really was distracting him from the small little explanation he'd gotten from the new Velvet Room resident.</p><p>"I'm so confused." he confessed.</p><p>But that didn't matter, Lavenza said. What mattered was that the fake was out, and the real was in. The Velvet Room was, after all, a place between mind and matter, dream and reality. Those who disappeared from cognition and the real world could still exist here. Which meant he could now focus on something of particular interest to him.</p><p>Rescuing his friends.</p><p>...</p><p>And yes, beating the shit out of God too, but that would come <em>after</em> rescuing his friends.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>